With tons of lease information documents already on the shelves, why should you devote substantial time and effort to drafting new lease paragraphs? The answer is that almost all of the existing documents have been drawn for landlords, owners, and brokers. Many years ago, IDRC members felt a need for documents drawn with the interests of the corporate tenant in mind.

The National Office Lease is the current step in a series of lease documents drafted by members of IDRC. This lease pertains primarily to leasing office space; whereas other IDRC lease documents have been more encompassing. We present this document as the state-of-the-art in leasing standards, but we provide here a link to another IDRC lease document, the Lease Database, 1979. Some clauses in the older document may be appropriate for your needs, so we encourage you to browse the Table of Contents. The Introduction to the Lease Database provides historical data on the beginnings of IDRC lease drafting. It is an excellent place to begin if you are interested in how leasing documents have changed over time.

Corporate Real Estate Office Lease Standards: A Response to Changes in US Capital markets by Ben D. DeVries, CRE, is a paper discussing changing leasing standards over the years. The National Office Lease was drafted with these changes in mind. This paper is a good starting point to understanding why the National Office Lease is different from other lease documents.

• National Office Lease

• Lease Database